


Source

by ThinkSauce



Category: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Genre: Crapsack World, Far Future Equestria, For Science!, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 04:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9802082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThinkSauce/pseuds/ThinkSauce
Summary: A scientist aims to find out how six pagan goddesses, an excitable pegasus brain, and an obnoxious eight year old messiah can put an end to Equestria's eternal winter.





	

     Nightmares.

     The ship blammed forward with the speed of a train running on nightmares.

     Ludicrous, flabbergasting speed. If the flight hammock hadn't been tethered to the floor, I would have swung into the ceiling hard enough to fire my spleen out of my mare-parts. For a second, I thought we would outrun time, light, and rectal continence.

We traversed Baltimare in microseconds. My brain barely had time to register that we would blast into the Shining Armor field and shatter into many gory pieces, and the last thing going through my mind would most likely be my own plot. By the time I thought this, however, which materialized several milliseconds past the moment I should have died, I realized we turned. The LYL-T blazed laps around the city just inside the glowing purple orb of the Shining Armor field. The pegasi guards, dumbfounded and motionless, gaped as we passed them. And passed them. And passed them.

Every disconcerting fear of speed and motio... Oh... Oh no. My stomach threatened to sick since we'd lifted off, and it finally made good. I expelled the remains of my apple brown betty, which tore backwards so fast I was shocked it didn't kill Sirocco when it blorched all over the side of his face. Now I was terrified, sick, and embarrassed. My only consolation (and what a poor consolation it was); we would all be dead soon, and my shame with us.

I stared at Doc Nucleus like he should be doing something, which he should, given this was probably thirty-five percent his fault. Maybe forty. I figured he'd get the clue none of us wanted to die in the spin cycle, but you know us thinking types. We drive ourselves to distraction. Still, he seemed to get it. His horn lit up. A button depressed. The ship's voice crackled on again, this time in the rehearsed monotone of a pony reading from a script:

**> Rainboom Drive activated.**

"Just like the simulation," he shouted, "Go!"

Better story-ponies than I couldn't make this up. A circle of rainbow light _erupted_ from the ship's engines. Speed, distance, physics; all unmade themselves into a sphincter-puckering notion of _forward_ and _going_. The rules of the universe gave up.

I will say one thing for vomiting. When you're doing it, you can't concentrate on much else. Thus, by the time I finished my second barf, which thankfully coated only the red heart-covered first aid kit, I barely caught Baltimare _shrinking_ out of the rear Dash-cam, engulfed by a halo of rainbow light. We pierced the field! I could just barely see the jagged hole filling up with Holy Guard vessels until the whole city sucked back into impossible smallness and winked out behind the whipping snow.

**> Warning: Drive integrity compromised.**

Sirocco screamed a little-kid scream.

The LYL-T's voice, now untethered from its script, snapped over the speakers, "Oooooooooww! Owowowowowowowowow!"

"Oh dear," Doc Nucleus peeped.

I turned my head towards him, saw the shocked whites of his panicked eyes, and clenched my teeth. Stupid physicists! The speed tore us back into our gravity hammocks as I cursed to myself how unready to die I was. I hadn't even been laid!

**> Engine temperature at 119% capacity.**

The LYL-T screamed. Screamed. Despite my panic, all I could focus on was that scream, overflowing with pain and terror. It was burning itself up. For what? For us? So it wouldn't let us down? I strained toward the controls, hooked the brace bar, and ignored Doc Nucleus being useless as I earth-pony-strengthed myself a few inches closer to the panel.

I swiped desperately at the controls. "It'll be okay," I grunted, "Just... lemme... turn this off."

It cried out again, but this time it sounded more like a groan.

I couldn't. I couldn't help her.

Double Down, pancaked against the wall as he was, bellowed, "Kill the engine, stupid!"

DUH, I thought as I slipped and swung back in my hammock, flailing like the non-action pony I was. Why was it that DD could, even in a moment of sheer horror, make me feel indignant? And who would make a ship that went this fast? Somepony must've had this skyscraper of a safety report and made paper mache out of it. Mediocre science! Now here we were, about to burn to death in the frozen sky and I couldn't do anything to help anypony. Let alone myself.

Doc pressed something else, and I realized DD hadn't been talking to me.

The whooshing, screaming, groaning stopped.

My insides, which had been trying to escape from my plot, not tried to go out my face. What happens when an airship moving at maniacal speed cuts its engines? Let's break it down.

First, the air around around the ship, hitherto stretched, snaps back, sounding like a huge, shitty rubber band spanking your dreams.

Second, unable to maintain aerodynamic efficiency, the ship tumbles forward. Not a whole lot. Just enough to make the folks inside completely panic while being sprayed with a light coat of any vomit which may be laying around the cabin.

Third, and I believe this unique to our situation, with the ship's 'brain' being 'fried', it will not work its levitation talismans or cameras. The folks regretting they were alive? Now they're panicked _and_ unable to steer or see. The Dash-cams showed a whirl of snow, glinting metal, and the occasional blink of threatening sky. We were going to die and we weren't even going to see what killed us.

Fourth, most regrettably; the crash.

Now, I love sound descriptors. Love them. I couldn't tell you much about what happened in the mind-blanking seconds where we smashed into something, skidded, and thudded into something else, but I did hear it pretty well. It went like this, and I quote:

**_PONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG! SCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRRRCHHHHHHHH!_ **

_"Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaoooooooooowwwwwwwww!"_

_Swoosh!_

**KccccccccccchhhhhhhRRRRRRRRrrrrrrr! Bang!**

**_FWUMP!_ **

(I may have embellished.)

I barely caught Double Down pinballing around the cabin as the back wall slapped him into the front and vice versa. Served him right! My inward victory ended as Beat, who had been pinned in the back with him, came crashing into my barrel and sent us both spinning.

I'm not going to imply I tried to catch her, or that I'm a particularly heroic, good, or selfless pony, or that she should lay off me because I saved her stinking life. Of course not. When she flew into me, though, I grabbed on with all four strong earth pony legs and held on like grim death. Luckily, I walked a lot and she was a skinny little drug addict, and I reeled her in tight. It might have been a touching moment if she hadn't been staring at me with a look simultaneously terrified and fuming pissed.

"You got me into this," that look said, "You flank-stabbing piece of garbage."

Sirocco shrieked another little-kid shriek as the cameras went snowy-white, then black.

The world went away, and I was left with only the memory of how things got so royally hosed.


End file.
